Irish-born novelist Joseph O’Neill, who has adopted Crown Heights as his hometown, experienced a rare international childhood. He was partially raised in Turkey, the Netherlands, South Africa and the Middle East. His writing is made all the richer by this life experience. 

O’Neill recently published “Godwin,” his fifth novel ten years in the making. O’Neill garnered acclaim for his 2008 novel “Netherland,” and O’Neill has established a career as a short-story writer, cultural critic and political writer. 

“Godwin” follows two brothers with different lives seeking fulfillment. Mark finds an opportunity for adventure and meaning when his younger half-brother, Geoff, decides to pursue a soccer prodigy in Africa. 

“I needed the book to be kind of indirectly pressured by [a political situation in the United States] because it felt slightly artificial to keep writing a story which had a vibrant literary history — that story of the Africa tale, the neocolonial adventure,” said O’Neill, who developed the character Lakesha in the last third of the writing process to balance the story and add perspective. “Mark represents a masculine, capitalist, nihilist grandiosity. He means well, but he feels dissatisfied with the civic order to the extent that he feels insufficiently recognized in it, whereas Lakesha is a woman and devoted to a kind of civic project, which is the cooperative. I feel that this masculine-feminine divide is reflected. This book does reflect something important about the organization of us and our world at the moment”

O’Neill was raised in several different countries and cultures, and his background was an amalgamation of cultures, traditions and languages. As an adult, O’Neill moved to New York City and spent time in Flatbush in the early 2000s, and both his upbringing as well as his experience in New York City influenced his approach to storytelling. 

“I was a foreigner wherever I went, and I spent my early years in Africa. My earliest memories are of Africa — Mozambique and South Africa — and then I grew up in Holland as the son of an Irishman and a Turkish mother who’s ethnically Arab,” said O’Neill. “I was enriched by all of this kind of floating around, deprived, in some ways, of a straightforward cultural identity — a national identity that most people have.”

Despite his cosmopolitan history, O’Neill said Brooklyn is unique because it feels like home. 

“I first moved to Brooklyn in 2004 and I lived in Flatbush for a year, but then I went back to Manhattan, and then I came out again to Crown Heights in 2022 and I do feel like it’s home,” said O’Neill. “New York is home. It’s a special place. The part I live in reminds me of South London, because it’s quite a West Indian neighborhood, and it reminds me of Brixton, or somewhere like that where I used to live. I feel very much at home there, and I don’t feel at home outside of New York, I must confess. Not anymore.”

O’Neill teaches at Bard College and noted that he often gets requests for advice. O’Neill’s advice to young writers is to “write about New York because everybody wants to read about it.” O’Neill described New York as a “universal city,” where people who have never visited are still drawn to media about it. He added, “‘Netherland’ was set in New York, and that’s what people loved about it. They loved all the descriptions of New York, and it made them feel connected.”

But with “Godwin,” O’Neill pivoted from writing about New York because “I don’t have that sort of newcomer’s perspective, which is infatuation.” 

“I was infatuated with New York for years — just seeing the skyline coming in from JFK, and my heart would start racing. That doesn’t happen anymore,” said O’Neill. “I don’t have a direct impulse to write about New York as much as I used to, but I think it’s a sustaining place.”

“Godwin” is set in other cities, each very different from each other. The characters in “Godwin” visit Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Benin and Le Mans — all places O’Neill visited in person. 

“I went to Benin on purpose expressly for this book in 2015, and I spent 10 days there,” said O’Neill. “That was a wonderful experience. Pittsburgh and Milwaukee I’d already been to. I used that retrospectively, retroactively. Everything I do is research at some point.”

Just as he experienced each city and culture to write “Godwin,” O’Neill’s research into football culture came from “hours of football YouTube.” O’Neill extracted slang and vernacular from 2015-era footballers and fanatics to convey every detail of the time period and cultural scene. 

O’Neill’s nomadic background and multicultural identity inform his approach to storytelling and writing; the writer frequently wrestles with themes of identity, reality and community. O’Neill’s latest novel, “Godwin,” is available to purchase in most book retailers.